


Color Wonder

by jamesgatz1925



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: First Meeting, M/M, Soulmate AU, soulmate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-03-30 02:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13940292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesgatz1925/pseuds/jamesgatz1925
Summary: The world is gray. Until it’s not.





	Color Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this prompt on tumblr for another fandom and I decided to steal it, kind of. The prompt just said ‘soulmate au with something about color’. Well, here you go. I wrote this quickly. Sorry if it stinks. Hope you like it anyway. Thanks for reading.

The world was gray.

That’s just how it was.

It wasn’t boring by any means. There were bright grays and dark grays. Hues and shades and pigments of gray. And everyone saw it.

People knew what color was, of course. People of varying ages got the gift of color when they met their soulmate, so there were sources of color and stories passed from parents to kids, kids to other kids, and sometimes kids to parents. It was a sad day when a married adult revealed they saw no color, because the one they’d chosen for their life was not The One.

But there was color. Red felt like a burning coal. Orange looked like the sun as it was going down. Yellow smelled like a daisy. Green felt like freshly cut grass. Blue was the sky. Purple tasted like grapes. Pink tasted like bubble gum. White looked like snow. Black felt like the calm, quiet darkness of the middle of the night. And brown tasted like chocolate.

Most people adjusted to it easily, the lack of color in their world. It was the norm. Everyone went through life up until meeting their soulmate not knowing what color their own eyes were, unless told. They went through life picking out clothes by the color tag on the label. When driving, they learned quickly that stop was on top, the middle was a warning to slow down, and go was on bottom. People knew how to get through every day life with the obstacle.

Rafael knew how perfectly. He knew the shade of black his coffee needed to be to be perfect. A quick Google search once told him what colors went together so he could plan outfits accordingly. And he knew since he was a small child that he had a beautiful set of green eyes.

He was used to the world of gray. Being well into his forties and lacking color, he was used to being used to it. Years ago, it bothered him. He worried when he didn’t find his soulmate, when nobody fit. Then he accepted it and had since decided nobody was destined to fit, and a colorless world was all he knew so why would it change as an adult. He didn’t wonder what color looked like.

Sometimes Rafael screwed up. Sometimes he would wear a pink shirt and a green pocket square and it looked terrible.

Inevitably, Liv would be the first person throughout his day to point it out, because she got the gift of color years and years ago the first time she met her old partner. So, when she saw Rafael, she’d hold back a laugh.

“Forget to check the label on the tag of your pocket square?” she’d ask.

“Huh?” Rafael would retort, pulling the square out of his pocket to check the label. He’d find the ‘GR’ color code and say, “Damn it.”

Then, Liv would laugh. Rafael would glare at her.

“It’s not funny,” Rafael would say but barely take any real offense. He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t see color.

Early in his career, Rafael got used to asking for help when there was a color detail made by a victim or witness. He found a legal aid credible enough to trust, because a detail about a red hoodie didn’t help if a member of the jury or even the judge couldn’t see color.

Only one amateur defense attorney tried to argue color with him once, but the judge luckily came to his aid.

“How do you know what color eyes my client has?” he argued with Rafael.

Rafael opened his mouth to inform the court that he had a credible legal aid who was willing to be put under oath, but the judge spoke up.

“Excuse me members of the jury, how many people can clearly see that the defendant has blue eyes?”

All but two jurors raised their hand. The trial went on.

Rafael just thought about how stupid defense attorneys could be to try to pull that one over.

So, Rafael was used to it, and made due with what he could. There were ways to get around the obstacle, but after your entire life colorless, it stopped being an obstacle.

* * *

 

Rafael got up at his usual time, when the sun was just beginning to stream bright through his bedroom window. He used the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and made his usual perfectly dark coffee before heading for a shower.

He picked out a tan suit, which he liked because tan was compared to beach sand in his mind, and a crisp white shirt and striped tie. The tie was easy to pick out because white and tan go with pretty much anything.

Everything was normal. A normally horrible case. A normal call to the precinct. Normal.

Liv had mentioned hiring a new detective, so Rafael was unsurprised when he exited the elevator and heard an unfamiliar voice. It was loud and excited, a terrible accent that Rafael immediately found annoying and too eager. Rafael just rolled his eyes and the thought of a puppy-dog new guy, eager for his first shot in such an important division.

But then Rafael caught a glimpse of the new guy and there, on a patch of his shoulder, was...not-gray. What was it? It was vibrant, kind of bright, brighter than the gray backsplash of everything else in his vision.

He didn’t properly meet the new guy, but he listened as the detective spoke. If not for he importance of his case, but because every few minutes there would be another patch of color somewhere on him. His shirt was definitely becoming a different color, but what? What was it? And why?

The thought hadn’t even really occurred to him that he was having a soulmate discovery. It really didn’t occur to him that it was the new detective. All Rafael was focused on was the color popping from his shirt.

“Liv,” Rafael went up to her really quickly before leaving. “What color is the new guy’s shirt?”

“Uh...” Liv looked at him through the office. “Kind of a purple-ish, pink-ish. Why?”

Rafael’s heart was beating quickly. That was color? It was beautiful.

Rafael gave an excuse that he was just wondering, then he quickly left and returned to his office as quickly as he could.

* * *

 

It took days for everything to transition into color, and it was ridiculously overwhelming. Everything was so bright, except his coffee which really was truly dark.

His clothes were too bright. For weeks, Rafael could only wear bland colors like the gray he was used to. He didn’t like the color of his office because it was brown. And even the color of his own eyes were shocking.

Rafael wondered if color would look like this forever. Everything looked like an overexposed photograph. It looked like the flash was on in a dark room. It looked like a generic department store.

He hated it.

Cases finally slowed down enough for Rafael to meet the new detective. Liv called Rafael over for a rundown of new cases and an offered cup of coffee. Then, she called the new guy into the office to meet Rafael.

“Detective Carisi, this is ADA Barba. You guys didn’t get a chance to meet when you first got here.”

Detective Carisi turned to Rafael. “Dominick Carisi Jr., but everyone calls me Sonny.”

Carisi was smiling, and Rafael couldn’t look away from his face.

Pink lips, pink cheeks, hair the color of something Rafael couldn’t quite describe. And then Rafael looked into his eyes; the most beautiful set of blue eyes that probably graced the earth. Not that he had much to compare it to, as all of this color was new, but Rafael was sure no color was more beautiful.

Carisi’s smile was infectious. Rafael smiled back and realized color showed up when Carisi did. That thought in itself, that Carisi could be his soulmate, was not as overwhelming as the color itself.

But Rafael had time to get used to him, too. Relationships were not as sudden as color.

After they officially met and spoke more, after Rafael got to know Carisi and his tendency to speak out about every thought that entered his head, every opinion he had, the color managed to dull into pleasantness. It was nice in his world that everything had a rightful color. Everything made more sense. It made sense that chili’s were red, oranges were orange, the sun was yellow, leaves were green, the Hudson River was blue, lavender was purple, pink was his favorite color, by far. Everything was in its place.

But Sonny was the brightest of all the colors. He seemed to glow. From his cheeks when Rafael made him blush, to his red bruised lips when Rafael kissed him, Sonny was a beautiful array of tones that satisfied what Rafael had missed his entire life.

And Rafael was happy in the change. He was happy he got to experience what he didn’t know he’d missed his entire life: colors and love.


End file.
